


Collateral Damage

by TalksToSelf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, I’m a million months pregnant and took it out on the characters, Lots of Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 15:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16915680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalksToSelf/pseuds/TalksToSelf
Summary: Following the events of Byzantium, Castiel has to make a promise to himself to never breathe a word of his feelings for Dean.





	Collateral Damage

**Author's Note:**

> I’m due to have a baby in like two weeks. Byzantium broke me so I broke it right back. I made myself sad so now you all have to be sad too, it’s the law.

Dean Winchester is forty when he finally bites the bullet and does it.

More precisely he is forty years, three hours and twelve minutes old, and his birthday party is in full swing, the bunker alive with music. Normally their birthdays are subdued affairs, a nod of the head in the corridor at the morning, maybe a bottle of booze chucked either direction in the evening with a brief acknowledgement of the date - but it’s his fortieth. It’s a big deal. Or at least Sam says it is. They have a decent sized family now, they have friends and a house full of guests, and truth be told they haven’t really had an excuse to celebrate Jack’s return from his brief stint in heaven so they use all those reasons as good enough and throw a party for once in their lives. 

So he’s on the pleasant side of tipsy, people are chattering away endlessly, Garth is laughing so hard at a dirty joke Jody told that Claire thinks he’s going to fall over any second. Mary was the one who put one of Dean’s Zeppelin albums on and the notes carry around the bunker like a spell. Dean’s never been happier. He looks at Sam, who’s straightening Jack’s lopsided shirt like a fussy mother would a small child on school picture day, and Dean finds himself beaming in pride. This is his home and his family. He’s had to work for it, fight for it, and really struggle to keep it but it’s all here. And it’s all his. And it’s perfect. 

Almost. 

He glances at Castiel, the angel has a whiskey in his hand and is surveying the interaction between Sam and Jack with the same fond warmth touching his face and the decision is made. Regardless of the amount of people present, regardless of any shame and embarrassment he still holds regarding a secret he’s bottled for forty years, Dean finds himself moving into Castiel’s personal bubble - he’d never been shut out of it before. He shuffles so they’re toe to toe and takes the glass from Castiel’s hand, setting it aside. He grins at Castiel’s bewildered look, taking an odd thrill in blindsiding him and then kisses him. 

Cas tastes of whiskey which should be obvious, and an electricity which Dean can’t exactly place. He feels sparks, shocks and lightning all surge through his being at once, acutely aware of it. It’s tangible. If someone told him he was glowing at that moment he would believe them. He can practically hear the cogs whirring in Castiel’s brain, but it’s drowned out by several whoops and whistles from enthusiastic partygoers witnessing the sight. A cheer of  
“Finally!” From Sam cuts through the air second only to a very concerned   
“Cas?” From Jack. 

And that’s the end of their first kiss. The end of their last kiss. The whiskey and lightning both vanish as Castiel pushes Dean away almost too roughly, staring at him aghast and whispers  
“I... Can’t. I’m sorry.” He breathes, distraught. “Dean, I don’t... I don’t feel that way about you.” Castiel croaks, blue eyes wide with panic. 

Dean is forty years, three hours and thirteen minutes old when his heart shatters, very publicly. He laughs it off, murmurs something about clearly having had too much to drink. Nobody believes him, but they let him duck out on his own party to save face. Castiel leaves too. 

—————

Dean’s forty two years, nine months and six days before they actually talk about it. Because for all his progress he still doesn’t use his words as often as he should. They’re standing around a lit pyre, watching as the thick black smoke curls into the autumnal night air. One by one people are bowing out, saying their piece and settling their glasses. Dean watches as his mother slips away quietly to grieve in private, a haunted look etched on her face. 

“Sucks to be her right now.” Dean mumbles. Beside him Castiel sighs and sits on a log, nodding.   
“Yes. I can’t imagine it’s easy for any of you - much less your mother.”   
“She’s never really had to grieve like this.” Dean says, sitting beside his best friend. “When she came back dad was long gone. We expect to lose hunters, y’know? We’ve all lost friends... colleagues... but... it’s different. When you lose the person you love...” he glances at Castiel then shakes his head. “I can’t expect you to understand...” 

He does, of course. Castiel has lost Dean many times before too, never quite knowing whether each turn would be permanent. He nearly says so - but bites his tongue. He decided nearly three years prior that it wasn’t a road they could go down, so he stops himself. Dean appears in the mood to talk though, so Castiel listens.   
“I think... I mean every time you’ve died on me it’s been absolute hell but... every time you do it’s like you...” Dean struggles and shakes his head, chasing a spark into the distance with his vision. “You take a piece of me with you.” He mumbles.

There’s a long pause and then Dean laughs. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyeballs and groans.   
“Look Cas... I... I don’t expect you to love me back. I get it.” He says, voice raw with emotion. It’s clear he thinks he isn’t enough and that cuts Cas like a knife.

If there is ever a moment Castiel was going to throw it all away that was it. It takes every ounce of grace and strength he has not to use his last breath to tell Dean he loves him there and then and be swept off by The Shadow, blissfully aware that it was mutual. It would feel worth it, even if for a split second Dean would realise his worth. But Dean’s next words stop him from doing exactly that.   
“You don’t have to. I’m happy as we are, yeah? The whole profound bond, best friend thing - I’m good with it. It’s not second best or whatever it’s fine. I just... want you to try keep a promise for me.” He kicks absently at the ground as he speaks, lost in thought.   
“Anything.” Cas says softly. He would give Dean the world if he could. 

“Promise me you’ll try stay alive.” Dean murmurs, avoiding Cas’ gaze. “Promise me you won’t... look Jack’s like... immortal, yeah? He’s gonna outlive me and mom and Sam. Comes to us all in the end - I’m cool with it. But he needs you. And I...” His voice cracks for a moment as he stares in the direction his mother vanished in. “I never want to feel like that again, Cas. So. Do your damndest not to die before me, okay?” 

And there it is. The catch 22. As willing as Castiel is to die and to simply exist in the nothingness of the void in order to let Dean know he is loved - if he ever speaks it aloud it would break Dean. It would destroy him, worse than Castiel had ever seen him. Castiel silently reaffirms the vow he had made at Dean’s fortieth birthday party.   
“I promise.” He whispers. Dean stands up, raises his glass to Bobby’s memory, then claps Castiel gently on the shoulder. His fingertips linger a little longer than necessary. Cas wishes he would never let go. 

——————

Dean is sixty seven years, four months and three days old when he dies for the final time. He’s okay with it. Years more than most hunters get. He’s content with it this time, he’s followed the natural order of things. It was a witch that got him in the end, and he had been alone. He is just about to leave, willingly, with his reaper when Castiel, Jack and Sam find his body and he falters.  
“Don’t make me call Death.” The reaper groans, hiding his face in his hands - nobody likes drawing a Winchester from the pool. Dean casts one last look at his family, he’s beyond the veil and nobody can see him, nobody’s looking in their direction anyway. They all gather around his body instead. Dean’s not attached to it any more, not sentimentally, not physically. It’s an empty shell of an old man. 

Sam is so much thinner and worn than he once had been, his hair a dark steely grey and his stubble rough and unkempt. Dean knows it won’t be too long until Sam follows him. He’ll see him again and it won’t feel like a long time at all. He looks at Jack - barely older than thirty in his appearance - they raised him right. A good man. A good hunter. Dean’s satisfied his son turned out okay. Finally he looks at Cas and for one brief moment he considers the haunted look on his face - a face the same age as it had always been - to be that of someone who has just lost a lover. But Castiel had told him on many occasions throughout their lives that he just didn’t feel that way, so Dean concludes it’s a trick of the light.   
“You don’t have to call Billie. I’m coming.” Dean says, shrugging shoulders that no longer ache with the pains of age. “Hey, how’s my mom doing?” He asks as, surprised, the reaper leads him into the light. 

————— 

Castiel doesn’t know how old he is. He’s not bragging or anything, he’s just lost track of it all. He’s seen ages, eons, millennia. It’s all sort of blurred together and while he remembers every second of it, it all seems pointless up until The Winchester era. Dragging Dean from hell was the moment his life really began. Perhaps that only leaves him in his thirties? 

Castiel doesn’t know how old he is when it comes for him.

He knows if Dean were alive then Dean would be sixty seven years, four months and four days old. But Dean is gone, his soul departed and his body nothing but a pile of ash at the bottom of a bonfire as of a few hours ago. So when it shows up, wearing Dean’s face, Castiel frowns.   
“You think I’m happy now?” He whispers, bewildered. The thing is clearly not Dean, though it sports the dashing good looks of his youth. It looks like Dean as Castiel had first met him - in his late twenties, full of energy. But there’s none of Dean’s warmth in its eyes. It laughs.   
“No, Castiel. I don’t.” It circles the bed that Castiel is resting on - Dean’s bed, because just forty eight hours prior Dean had lived and breathed and gone to sleep in this bed and Castiel feels close to him here. 

“I think you...” it cocks its head, its grin eerie upon Dean’s face. “Are miserable. You know he died thinking he was never truly loved, don’t you? I think it tears you up inside to know he never married, he never had actual children, he never retired... because he always held out hope for the two of you.”  
“Stop it.” Castiel growls, fists clenching in the sheets.   
“You broke his heart, Castiel.” It sings, tapping its chest, mimicking and mocking Dean’s broken heart. “Tsk tsk tsk. You didn’t kill Dean Winchester, oh no - a witch did that... but you let him exist miserably for decades. You let him think he wasn’t good enough for you. You never let him move on. You let him die alone - all to save yourself.” If it grins any wider, the top of its Dean mask might just fall right off its head.   
“He asked me to.” Castiel whispers weakly, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head so violently that the droplets fall to the bed. 

The shadow giggles and sits down opposite Castiel on the bed.   
“I meant it when I said I wanted you to suffer.” It hisses. “I could have snatched you up there and then the day you told me to. But your boy, your hope, your optimism, your love for that man... you had too much going on. You wouldn’t have been a good little boy and gone to sleep.” It growls. “So I waited. I waited for you to destroy yourself. I waited for you to break him. I waited. I waited until you had nothing left.” It throws Dean’s head back and moans obscenely, as though deriving pleasure from it all. “Because now... now you’ll sleep. And if you sleep... I can sleep.” It breathes. 

Castiel frowns. It was never coming for him happy. It wouldn’t have been able to keep him. The realisation that he lost out on decades with the love of his life. That he had broken Dean Winchester’s heart and his spirit for absolutely no reason. That this was how it all ended. The creature suddenly looks soft, its expression actually not one that would seem out of place on Dean’s face. 

“Can we go to sleep now, Castiel?” It begs. Dean’s hand reaches out and hovers over Castiel’s cheek, asking his consent. Cas swallows hard. This had always been the way his story would end: he had been destined for The Empty his entire, far too long existence but Dean Winchester had been nothing but collateral damage, a cruel casualty of Castiel’s decisions. The last ounce of fight leaves his body.  
“Let’s sleep.” Castiel whispers, closing his eyes for the final time.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry. I love you.


End file.
